


Sharing is Caring

by Sapphicsarah



Category: Holby City
Genre: Elinor Lives, F/F, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphicsarah/pseuds/Sapphicsarah
Summary: Five times Serena and Bernie share.





	Sharing is Caring

Serena had never expected to fall in love so far down the road. She just didn’t expect it; the butterflies in her stomach and the frogs in her throat, the way her palms get all sweaty when Bernie is near. Or the way she feels when she finds Bernie has left her Holby jumper all bunched up on the desk in their office.

Serena picks it up, and without thinking brings it close. It smells of Bernie, like coffee and cigarettes. There is a small coffee stain on the left sleeve, and Serena traces it with her index finger. She wonders how long it's been since Bernie did the washing and decides to take it home and do it for her. A friendly gesture, nothing more. It’s not like Bernie will miss it, since she's off for two days. Two whole days of work without Bernie. Serena sighs at the thought, and gently places the jumper in her bag.

She doesn’t think about it until later that evening when she searches for her phone to set her alarm. Dinner was hectic and Jason had insisted on watching Pointless together, and she’s left the washing too late. It's just gone 10pm and she’s bone tired. Even so, she gingerly removes the hoodie from her purse, and places it beside her as she sits on the edge of her bed.

The fabric is soft and the inside is a warm-looking fuzzy material. Serena’s chest hurts at the soft feeling beneath her fingertips, and remembers that Bernie won’t be at work in the morning. She lets that realization sink in and turns it over and over in her head, looking at the feeling as she would a vascular surgery. As if her feelings for Bernie were an ailment to diagnose and treat with professional precision and cool detachment.

Love. The signs and symptoms are so familiar, that she hadn’t felt them creeping in until it was too late. _Its terminal_ , she thinks. A hopeless case.

Serena collapses back into the bed and tucks Bernie’s jumper under her pillow. A small part of one of the sleeves is poking out, and Serena  holds onto it until she falls asleep.  

In the morning, she sits up slowly, and blinks at the morning light filtering in through the window. The room is cold and Serena shivers when she places her bare feet on the wooden floor. She reaches for the hoodie and holds it in her lap, fiddling with the string for a moment. She sighs and thinks, _fuck it_.

The hood is big and forms a cocoon around her head, and the sleeves are a little too long. Serena pulls them down anyway, and takes in a deep breath, letting herself find comfort in the smell and the warmth of the hoodie. After a minute, she stands, and starts getting ready for work.

…

The first time Bernie spends the night is quite by accident. Serena had gotten drunk after a particularly hard day at work. Losing a patient never gets any easier, and Guy Self making an unannounced visit to the ward hadn't helped matters either. So when Fletch suggested Albie’s Serena had said, “God yes,” and dragged Bernie across the street and into the noisy pub.

Albie’s is warm and filled with friends and colleagues and Serena drinks more than she should and sits nearer to Bernie than she should. Their legs are touching beneath the little table the AAU family is crowded around, and Bernie keeps looking at her and Serena feels hot and clammy. She drinks quickly and tries to forget the name of the patient, their family with their hopeful faces. Tries to forget Bernie’s smile as she said they should keep it confined to theatre.

Bernie keeps looking at her, and after the third glass of shiraz Serena feels the courage to look back.

Bernie looks tired. Beautiful, but tired, and Serena leans a bit closer and murmurs into Bernie’s ear.

“Do you want to go to my place? Have a cup of tea?”

Bernie smiles, and it's a smile Serena hasn’t seen in weeks. Her stomach does that thing again, flips or flops or somersaults. It doesn’t go away until they’re halfway to Bernie’s car. The drive is short, since Serena only lives a few miles from the hospital. The evening is chilly, filled with the first signs of autumn, and Serena shivers as they walk up her drive.

Her house is warm and cosy and they stand in her kitchen and sip the tea in companionable silence. When the tea is gone and Bernie places her mug in the sink, Serena finds another burst of courage.

“Stay?”

Bernie stills and looks at her, eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re just as exhausted as I am. You can stay in the spare room if you like?”

Bernie thinks for a moment, and then nods.

Serena leads her upstairs, hands her a towel and an extra toothbrush, and explains Jason’s rules of the bathroom. They make the guest bed together, tucking in the sheets in each corner, and fluffing up the pillows.

“I haven’t got any pajamas,” Bernie murmurs.

“I think I may have something,” Serena whispers, mindful of Jason asleep down the hall.

She goes back into her bedroom and rummages through her drawers, until she finds her old Harvard t-shirt. It’s covered in paint stains, from when she painted the sitting room five years ago, and it’s got a hole at the hem near the bottom. But it's soft and comfortable, and Serena thinks the crimson color will look lovely on Bernie.

She’s proved right in the morning, when she sees Bernie standing in her kitchen in nothing but the t-shirt and pants. Serena doesn’t wash the t-shirt for a month.

…

One foggy afternoon, Serena is sad.

It’s not depression, not really. Just a day where she feels unfocused, as if the world is a little out of synch and fuzzy, the noises too distant and her consciousness too disconnected.

She stays home and watches telly, doesn’t even attempt leaving the house.

This happens sometimes, and usually it passes. So she puts the kettle on, pops in the dvd of Pride and Prejudice, and stares longingly at Colin Firth galloping across the English countryside.

She hears her mobile ding a few times, and decides it's not worth the trek from the sofa to the kitchen. She hears it ring, and she turns up the volume as Mr. Collins proposes to Lizzie.

She hears insistent knocking on her back door when Lizzie arrives at Rosings Park.

She frowns at the intrusion, pauses the dvd and slowly stands, making her way to the kitchen and to the back door. She opens it and prepares her tongue for a quick barb, but the bitter words die on her lips when she sees Bernie standing at her door.

“I heard you were sad today,” Bernie says. “So I brought cookie dough.” She holds up a shopping bag from Waitrose and Serena thinks she could kiss this woman right here and now. She quickly pushes the thought away.

“You better come in then,” she replies, already feeling a little better.

They sit on the sofa and watch Lizzie reject Mr. Darcy as the smell of baking cookies filters through the house. The cookies are still warm when Bernie comes out of the kitchen with a plate of them. But Bernie must have found the coat rack near the door, because she’s wearing Serena’s faux fur hat.

Serena giggles at the sight, and smiles fondly as Bernie, very seriously, sits down and bites into the biggest cookie off the plate.

“Nice hat,” Serena says between giggles.

“Thank you,” Bernie replies in a posh accent, and takes another bite, but this time with her pinky primly pointed to the ceiling.

“Suits you,” Serena quips.

Bernie laughs and takes the hat off, carefully placing it on the coffee table in front of them. She sits a little closer and takes in a quick breath when Serena places her hand on her thigh.

“Thank you for coming over.”

“Of course,” Bernie whispers.

Bernie is tense and stiff until Serena removes her hand, and Serena tries not to feel hurt by the way Bernie relaxes as they pull apart. They watch the telly until Serena falls asleep, and Bernie quietly tidies the kitchen and places a blanket over Serena before she tiptoes out the door.

The last thing Serena remembers is Lizzie wandering the grounds of Pemberley, and remembers thinking how nice it is to have Bernie in her home. How warm and lovely it is to laugh, to be taken care of, and to not feel like a burden.

The hat is still on the coffee table when Serena wakes up a few hours later.

…

For Christmas, Bernie buys Serena a pair of dangle pearl earrings. They have silver backings and topaz undertones, and Serena wears them every day for a week.

She shows Lou and Morven on the ward, leaning forward so that they can see the way the light catches and makes them subtly glitter. Jason rolls his eyes as she tells a colleague about the earrings in the line at pulses, and later answers a stranger's questions about the earrings in the lift.

“My partner got them for me for Christmas. Aren’t they lovely?”

“The entire hospital knows about your new earrings, Auntie Serena,” he groans.

Serena can’t bring herself to feel embarrassed.

On New Year’s they have to attend a work party, just a small cocktail party for consultants. It’s a notoriously boring function, but it is black tie, so Serena dresses in a dark navy blue dress. It’s a simple ensemble, adorned with golden stud earrings and a matching bangle.

Serena watches Bernie get ready in her bedroom, and marvels at how quickly some of Bernie’s things seem to have taken up permanent residence in Serena’s drawers. There is nothing major, just a few socks, some running clothes, and an extra pair of scrubs. Never pajamas, though. Bernie always wears the Harvard t-shirt when the stays over.

When Bernie is dressed and ready, the outfit seems unfinished somehow.

“How do I look?” Bernie asks, nearly blushing under Serena’s appreciating eye.

“Almost perfect,” Serena sighs.

“Almost?” Bernie asks with a small smile.

“I have just the thing,” Serena assures her.

She goes to her vanity and pulls out the small black box with the pearl drop earrings. Bernie looks confused when Serena holds them up, but Serena stops her protests and reassures her.

“I want you to wear them tonight. They’ll look lovely on you.”

“Are you sure?” Bernie murmurs, as Serena puts an earring in Bernie’s right ear. “I bought them for you to wear, not me.”

“I’m sure,” Serena whispers, before turning and kissing Bernie on the cheek. She steps back once both earrings are in, and takes a look.

“Perfect,” she says.

Bernie grins and keeps on grinning, until Serena kisses the grin right off her at midnight.

…

Serena had cut her hair short when she was in her 40’s. It’s just easier to maintain, and cheaper to colour, and she doesn’t have to buy hairbands anymore. Which is why, one day, when Bernie has to scrub in, Serena is utterly useless to her.

“Do you have a hair tie? I can’t find mine and I need to scrub.”

The scrub caps help cover hair, but without a tie the hair can escape. Serena hasn’t had to worry about that for nearly a decade, and feels a little silly about going to Morven and asking for a hair tie. So the next day she buys a pack, and starts wearing one around her wrist. The feeling is a little strange at first, having not had one around her wrist in ages. Not since Ellie was little and wore scrunchies with pompoms and beads. But it pays off one morning when Bernie rises early to go for a run.

She sits at the foot of Serena’s bed and puts on her trainers and pulls on a shirt, and then goes to pull her hair back into the world’s smallest ponytail.

“Damn,” she mutters.

“What is it?” Serena asks sleepily from her place tucked under the duvet.

“I haven’t got a hair tie, and I don’t like running with my hair down.”

“Here,” Serena murmurs, and raises her arm in the air. A hair tie sits delicately around her wrist. She feels Bernie gently take it off and she sits up to watch Bernie tie her hair back. Serena loves watching Bernie.

“Thank you,” Bernie whispers against Serena’s forehead, as she leans down for a quick Good Morning kiss.

Serena smiles and mumbles “welcome,” and lets herself drift back to sleep once Bernie has gone.

It becomes a common thing. Serena keeps a pack in her handbag, and always wears at least one on her wrist. She hands one to Bernie before they scrub for a case, before they cook dinner together, and before Bernie joins her in the bath. She hands her a hair tie before countless runs, and on mornings when Bernie is too tired to even think about brushing her hair. Serena wears the hair bands like a promise, and gives them away each time Bernie needs her. It’s simple and kind and something Serena loves doing.

One evening after work, they’re watching some documentary Jason put on. Elinor is on her phone texting or something, and the snow is falling outside. It's cold and soft and the world seems almost perfect. Bernie follows her up to bed, and Serena looks at her.

She steps forward and frames Bernie’s face with both hands. Kisses her softly on the lips, and puts a hand up to the little ponytail at the back of Bernie’s neck. She tugs gently, and lets Bernie’s hair spring loose. Bernie shivers as Serena combs her fingers through the blonde locks, and leans down to kiss her again.

The kiss is soft and warm, and Serena is not sure how many times they’ve kissed over the years. She feels tired, but gently places the forgotten hair band on her wrist, and takes Bernie’s hand in hers. She leads her to bed, and they curl up together and talk for a little while. They talk about the kids, about the ward, about the snowstorm that is supposed to come at the weekend.

When Serena is about to fall asleep, she hears Bernie whisper.

“I love that thing you do.”

Serena cracks open one eyelid.

“What thing?”

“The thing with the hairband,” Bernie says shyly, as she looks at Serena through her fringe.

Serena loves that after all this time, Bernie can still be a little shy. She reaches up and pushes back the hair covering Bernie’s eyes, leans forward and kisses Bernie’s forehead.

“You always lose yours, so I make sure I have one for you.”

“Sharing is caring, and all that?” Bernie whispers.

Serena nods, and after a few moments whispers back.

“I love you so much Bernie.”

Her voice is sleepily and her words are a little slurred, but Bernie pulls her closer, until they’re pressed together. Serena tucks her head into the crook of Bernie’s neck and listens to her breathe. She takes in a deep breath and sighs at the smell of Bernie. Her stomach flips at the way Bernie’s hand is drawing comforting circles on her back.

She smiles when Bernie kisses her forehead one last time, and finally drifts to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I miss them.


End file.
